Free Bitter Sweet Beginnings by Tara Oakes Page A

plagued me since childhood, there are times when I am free from its spell. In some ways, those absences are much more cruel than the nightmares themselves.
    Those are the times when I convince myself I am just like everybody else, that some phase of all-too realistic night terrors has been outgrown. That, finally, I can close my eyes at night and not dread the darkness.
    But then after some time, whether it be a night, a week, or in the longest stretch five months, the dream returns, serving as evidence that I am not like everyone else. All the “normal” things that most everyone else does in life aren’t possible for me.
    The feeling of a good night’s sleep, rejuvenated and well rested… those feelings don’t come for me. In the rare nights when the nightmare is kept at bay, I sleep with unease somehow, waiting for it.
    I’m young, twenty-three years old, but the lack of sleep seems to have aged me. I feel it. I don’t have that same carefree, whimsical manner that my contemporaries seem to effortlessly radiate. One more example of how I am different somehow. But it isn’t only in these later years that my affliction is a barrier to what I yearn for most.
    When I was a child, the dreams plagued me, causing screaming fits and endless tears. I didn’t know that I was the only one to have these nighttime fantasies. I thought everyone did. It was a second-grade assignment where we were asked to write a small page about our favorite dream that I realized I was different.
    The kitty cats and unicorns that my classmates spoke of were foreign to me. My mom helped me with that homework assignment, convinced she could ensure a good grade. Though, I suspect she wanted to save me the embarrassment and ridicule that the truth would have brought.
    For however upsetting the dreams made me, I know my parents were equally affected. There were endless doctor appointments, specialist referrals and testing to determine what ailed their little girl. When no cause could be found, and a corresponding cure no longer a possibility, the diagnosis given was psychological.
    There were weekly therapy appointments, nightly melatonin treatments, and finally an arsenal of prescription elixirs to mask the symptoms.
    They never worked, though. Short of sedation, there was no barrier that could be put in place to keep the dreams at bay.
    I am the only girl I know who has never had the right of passage sleepovers that pre-teen girls subject themselves to. The risk was too high. Mom went to great lengths to keep my torment hidden. Other than relatives, there were never overnight guests in our home, and when there were, creative excuses were given to the rare witness to my calamity.
    It’s amazing how adaptive children can be. It became my normal… the girl who had to sleep at home, never inviting her friends to spend the night.
    It was successful though. The careful plan than mom and dad had constructed when I was young had helped me to navigate those awkward teen years without any ridicule for my hidden disorder. It was our little family secret.
    That privacy and secrecy paved the way for my approach to many things in life. My college years were spent living at home, commuting to and from daily classes at Easton University, while my closest friends dormed in the coed living quarters on campus.
    After a long night of studying, partying, or trying to act like your normal college undergrad, I would then take the forty-minute drive back home to the safety of my own bed.
    Those habits die hard. I still sleep alone, although now as a young adult I have the luxury of my own little apartment, carefully chosen with only a nearly deaf little old lady as a wall-sharing neighbor.
    The curse has other lasting consequences. Besides my two best friends, no one knows about the nightly visits to hell I endure. To keep that from changing, I take great pains to keep others at bay, a safe distance where my secret will remain secure.
    The possibility of sharing time